“Well, you’ve certainly been a great help to a helpless man! You came to the rescue just in the nick of time! What wonderful advice you’ve given to a mixed-up man! What amazing insights you’ve provided! Where in the world did you learn all this? How did you become so inspired?”

After I bought my house in Colorado, a friend asked how my brother, John, had changed my mind about choosing this house. I thought I’d share that process with you, because it taught me an important lesson about getting unstuck.

I first saw this house, my new house, back in September. I rejected it because I thought the ceilings were too low compared to the very high ceilings of the house I was renting at the time. However, I also sent my brother an email brochure of the property because he was interested in our house hunt. He immediately liked the house and encouraged me to give it further consideration. So over the following months, I went back to the house about five times, each time convincing myself that this was not the house for me. In particular, I didn’t like the small room off of the living room, which was being used as a dining area, because of its low sloping ceiling.

By mid-November, John was calling almost daily for house hunting updates, because the landlord of the house we were renting had informed us that he was going to move back into the house by mid-December, which meant that we needed somewhere to move. Finally, John suggested that he come out to Evergreen from Tampa for a couple days to look at the house with me. I accepted his offer, certain that if he saw the house in person, he would see things my way.

So on a Sunday morning in late-November, the week before Thanksgiving and three weeks before we had to vacate our current home, John flew into Denver and I drove him straight to the house. After he looked around for ten minutes, he sat down on the steps and said, “I don’t want to influence you, but I’d buy this house.” He then proceeded to go through my list of objections one by one and offered actual solutions that would fix the problems:

Don’t like a sloping ceiling? Build a gabled roof! Don’t like the master bath? Put in those pebbled floors you’ve always dreamed of!

Did I mention that John is also a building contractor with a great deal of experience with home remodels?

Suddenly, instead of seeing that house as a source of frustration, I was filled with ideas to create a place I would really love. Yes, it would take time and money . . . and it could be years before I would be able to accomplish everything. But instead of frustration, I had new projects to dream and plan! Something clicked in my mind, and I was able to shift my perspective and see the house differently. Instead of focusing on its perceived faults, I was able to see its real beauty. That’s probably why I feel so at home here now.

Two days later, as I was driving John to the airport for his flight home, I received the call that my offer on the house had been accepted.

On one level, this is a story about what a great brother I have (and I do) and how my family offered wonderful advice and support during a very stressful time (which they did, thank you Kathy!). But it’s also a story about how to get unstuck.

Sometimes we can become so entrenched in our own opinion and so close to the problem we’re trying to solve that we feel paralyzed with indecision. I believe that this is when God may send other people into our lives to help us see our situation from a new perspective, one which will help us to move forward. However, we also need to be open to receiving that advice.

After the dust settled, I asked John how he had known what to say to me. He said that he listened to my objections to the house as he would listen to a client. Then, when he saw the house in person, he was able to counter my “feelings” about the house with concrete solutions.

Luckily, because I respect my brother’s superior knowledge of houses, I was able to allow myself to look at things differently and thus move forward from a limited belief to excitement about new possibilities. The irony is that, of course, the house hadn’t changed a bit in the two months I’d been looking at it; only my perspective had changed.

When I face what seems like an insurmountable problem, or when I feel myself getting stuck by one view of a situation, I will remember that if I am willing to open my mind, the solution will appear from a different perspective.

As to that dining area that caused me such frustration? Turns out that when my own dining room set was in there, it looked beautiful and has become one of my favorite rooms in the house.

Are you stuck? How might a different approach help you find a new solution? Do you have a friend or sibling who can offer wise counsel or a fresh perspective?

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

~Hebrews 10:23

I was unpacking the last of the boxes that were in storage in Florida when I came across one that was filled with pictures taken ten years ago. The pictures actually made me laugh as I looked at myself posed in front of the Duomo in Florence, Italy. I looked so earnest; I was trying so hard to appear fashionable because I’d recently lost fifty pounds and thought the new skinny me in my new wardrobe would be my key to happiness. It was, in some respects; I had a great time. Yet it was still the same old me inside, with all of the same old insecurities.

As I looked at those pictures, I wondered: Do we ever change over the years?

I guess the reason this is on my mind is that I recently had one of those “milestone” birthdays.

When I was younger, I always looked to the future and thought of the things I would accomplish and how different I would be at some future date. Like when I “grew up”.

As I looked at those pictures of me, then considered the row of journals that sit on my bookshelf spanning the course of twenty five years of my life, and as I unpacked that beautiful white lingerie that I bought fifteen years ago to wear on the wedding night that never happened, I realized that really, despite all the milestones that come with age, we don’t actually change the core of who we are.

When I lived in New York and worked on Wall Street, I imagined the pinnacle of my life would be when I turned 45, and I pictured myself riding to the office each morning in the back of a limousine. Today, that would be my idea of hell. In fact, it was just that mental picture that inspired me to leave New York, nearly twenty years ago.

I never became that woman I thought I wanted to be. Instead, I did something completely different. Though I have finally achieved many of the things I hoped for, while other goals remain elusive, what I find the most disconcerting is that inside, I am still the uncertain young girl I thought I’d eventually outgrow.

I always thought that with time and accomplishing my goals, all those fears and insecurities would somehow melt away and with age I would become more confident. Surprisingly, I haven’t evolved into something different than I was back then. I’m still Suzanne, with all my overblown self-doubt, my fear that no one likes me, that I’ll always fall short no matter how hard I try, and that I am not talented enough to be the popular girl. And I wonder what the point of the journey is if we can never escape that person we wanted to change, no matter how much we accomplish or how far we travel from where we first began?

And then . . .

Just when I think I’ve found a great truth, and I’ve decided that the best course is to simply aim a little lower, I instead discover something that turns my conclusion on its head.

Recently my mother has begun to cook, which is something for which she never exhibited the patience or interest for the first eighty-three years of her life. Then this past weekend she picked up my old battered copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and decided she was going to try a few recipes. She, who has been willingly displaced from her home (by choosing to join me in Colorado like Naomi from the Biblical book of Ruth) and who chugs along on a heart that operates at forty percent of its original capacity, has created a new life for herself here and found a grace and contentment that she never had before. What she seems to know instinctively (she’s always been a woman of action rather than the self-absorbed navel gazing that I excel in) is how to make the most of where you are geographically and spiritually. And as a result, her life is much richer.

My mother’s example reminds me that when we are willing to grow in our circumstances and allow God to lead us in our daily lives, we can accomplish our dreams, even as they change to reflect our spiritual maturity.

With new perspective, I look at the pictures of who I was then and compare them with who I am now, and I realize that as slowly and surely as the flow of water over rocks, God has smoothed my rough edges. He has brought me into a closer walk with Him. My journey is not complete, but I can see progress. Although it has been at times a painful journey, with many detours and delays, I am finally realizing the dreams I first dreamt when I decided to leave New York, twenty years ago.

Do we ever grow up? I believe the answer is yes, with the grace of God we can grow up and become the women that we’ve always wanted to be and, more importantly, the women that God has created us to be through the dreams he put in our hearts.

As you look back on the last ten or twenty years, how have your dreams changed? Is there one that you are still working on? Or have you embraced new dreams? Do you feel God calling you to revisit an old dream, or is He calling you to a new dream?

When Mom and I went to Mass for Ash Wednesday, this beautiful passage from the book of Joel was one of the readings, and it stayed with me afterwards, especially the line: “Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.”

God is interested in what is in our hearts. “Return to Me,” says God. Let’s use this time of pursuing our dreams as a journey of spiritual renewal in which we return to God and let Him speak to our hearts and renew our spirits.

I will confess that there have been times when I allowed my morning devotional to become a substitute for attending church, which it’s not meant to be. Personal daily devotions have one place in our spiritual life, and attending church belongs to the part of us that needs communion with others.

I am returning to God through my commitment to go back to church and work on a part of my faith that I’m not generally comfortable with, being part of a church community. I am choosing to overcome my public shyness and embrace my greater desire for communion with other Christians.

Are you part of a regular church community? If not, will you make plans to find a local church to call you spiritual home?

The Lord said [to Elijah], “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

~1 Kings 19:11-13

GOD IS IN THE GENTLE WHISPER

This was God’s response when his prophet, Elijah, reached the end of his rope and was literally begging God to let him die because the burden of living had become too great.

God told Elijah that he would come to him, and he did. Not with a great show of force and fireworks. No. God chose a means that befitted the fragile psyche of the exhausted, depressed Elijah.

God was in the gentle whisper.

Sometimes, when I am feeling depressed and overwhelmed, this is exactly what I hope for. God’s gentle, comforting presence.

In your journal, write down times in the past when you have felt the presence of God in your life. In the coming week, ask God to help you to become more aware of His presence in your life. Make a note of what happens.

Suzanne Anderson

Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson writes religious/inspirational fiction and non-fiction. She also writes Walking Our Faith, a weekly newspaper column about faith, for the Summit Daily News in Colorado. Suzanne was born in Fort Lauderdale, attended the University of Michigan on an athletic scholarship for swimming, and then worked on Wall Street. She left the bright lights of the big city twenty years ago and traveled the world. Suzanne now lives in Breckenridge, Colorado, with three very large Newfoundland dogs.